Former Chelsea player Pat Nevin has claimed that his former club should go all out and sign Evan Ferguson from Brighton & Hove Albion instead of someone like Karim Benzema.
Ferguson is one of the hottest young talents in world football and has been linked to all of the big clubs in England. However, he signed a new contract at Brighton, which makes it even harder to prise him away from Brighton.
Chelsea will be one of the club’s on the lookout for a striker this summer because of their striker troubles in front of goal. Nicholas Jackson has not hit the net as often as fans would like, and the need for a more potent finisher will intensify in the coming months.
Victor Osimhen from Napoli and Ferguson have both been linked with the London club in huge money moves. Nevin.
Chelsea could also sign an older, more experienced striker like Benzema from Saudi Arabia, but Nevin, the former winger who made 242 appearances for Chelsea during his five years at the club, believes that Chelsea should go for Ferguson in the summer.
“How many times have Chelsea gone down that route of signing an experienced striker? You think of the certain strikers that Chelsea have signed in the latter stages of their career, the likes of Shevchenko; I could go through a number of them. They’re all brilliant, but very few of them scored a lot of goals for the club,”he said
“On the other hand, if you are creating a number of chances, which Chelsea are, maybe you just need someone who can put the ball in the net. It’s such a short-termist thing, and it’s so against what the ethos of the club has been. It would be surprising, but does that mean it won’t happen? Absolutely not.
“It would be interesting, but Evan Ferguson would be the more obvious one to go for. If you’re going down the route of signing a young striker, Ferguson would be the one I would look at. Someone is needed upfront because when we’re asking Cole Palmer, Chelsea’s best player, to play upfront with his back to goal, of course he can do it, but you’re putting your best player out of position.”
Chelsea’s next game will be against Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup. Middlesbrough led 1-0 going into the second leg.
That game kick’s off at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, January 23.
Nevin was speaking to OCB Scores